Engineering Commons^™

التأثيرات السلبية الناتجة عن استخدام الأجهزة اللوحية الذكية على الصحة الجسمية والنفسية لأطفال من عمر(13-16) سنة من وجهة نظرهم, Nuha Iter

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

The study aimed to explore the negative effects of using smart devices on the physical and psychological health of children aged (13-16) years from their perspective. The study was applied to a random sample of children aged (13-16), consisting of (102) male and female students. The descriptive method was used to answer the study questions, and a questionnaire was developed to collect data, which contains (3) sections, first section asked about the most used and preferred devices by children aged (13-16) years, and the number of hours the child used the smart device, the second one asked about the negative …

Uniaxial Strain And Optical Properties Of Gap Nanowires, Rezek Mohammad

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

The optical properties for wurtzite (WZ) Bulk GaP and GaP nanowires (GaP-NWs) in hexagonal(circular), triangular and square cross sectional are investigated by using full potential linear augmented plane waves and local orbitals (FP-LAPW-LO) method based on density functional theory (DFT). The wurtzite nanowires are investigated with diameters limited to ~27 oA. The optical functions as a function of photon energy have been investigated for unstrained bulk WZ-GaP and WZ-GaP-NWs in the first part. Finally, the optical functions are investigated for WZ-GaP-NWs by applying uniaxial strain from -5% to +5%. The effect of cross sectional variation in the area and shape …

إثر استخدام شبكات التواصل الاجتماعية على الأداء الأكاديمي للطلبة, Abeer Qashou, Rania Abdalla

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

Social Network Sites (SNSs) are widely used by university students these days. The underlying reasons behind this use vary between academic and nonacademic purposes. The question is whether this use influences the students' academic performance or not. The aim of this study is to answer this question by examining the impact of five potential variables on the use of SNS, and the influence of this usage on the students' academic performance at Palestine Technical University-Kadoorie (PTUK). Five variables are included: the gender, age, faculty, duration of use, and computer self-efficacy. Stratified sampling technique was used to gather the required data, …

التحلل الضوئي للميثاميدوفوس (مبيد حشري) في الماء باستخدام اكسيد التيتانيوم النانوي البلوري المعدل بالصبغ المدعوم على أسطح الكربون المنشط, Lamees Majd, Nidal Zatar, Sameer Amereih, Hikmat Hilal

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

Anatase TiO2 surfaces have been treated with 2, 4, 6-triphenylpyrylium hydrogen sulfate (TPPHS) or tripyridylporhpyrinatomanganese(II) (MnP) dyes to yield the modified TiO2/ dye surfaces. The modified TiO2/dye surface was then supported onto activated carbon (AC) surfaces to yield a new class of catalytic system AC/TiO2/dye. The catalytic activities of naked TiO2, dye solution, TiO2/dye, and AC/TiO2/dye systems were examined in photo-degradation of Methamidophos (insecticide) in water, using both UV and visible light. All examined systems showed catalytic activity when used either in the UV or the visible regions, but the AC/TiO2/ dye showed the highest activity. The dye role, in …

التحقيق والتحليل التجريبي لتشغيل المحركات الحثية ثلاثية الطور في ظل حالة المرحلة الواحدة, Basem Alsayid

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

A three-phase induction motor will continue to operate when a disturbance of some sort causesthe source voltages of the motor to become unbalanced. When an induction motor is operated at unbalanced voltage supply the performance characteristics like efficiency, power factor, input power, output power and losses are affected. The single-phasing occurs when one phase fails as a result of a fuse blowing, protective device opening on one phase of the motor, open phase on one terminal of the motor or other causes.This paper will analyze the operation of a 3-phase induction motor under normal balancedsource voltages first, then under single …

تحسين الإنتاج الزراعي باعتبارات اجتماعية واقتصادية: دراسة حالة من فلسطين, Fathi Annaya

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

Agriculture is not only the main source of income to most Palestinian families; it is also the link to connect them to their valuable land and water resources. Farmers seek assistance from agronomists and decision makers to cultivatethe proper products. In this study, the best selection of agricultural crops is addressed in the multiple-objective context. The study deals with three conflicting objective functions: net benefit, agricultural production, and labor employment. Four-stageprocedure is adopted combining multiple-objective optimization, simple valuation methods, cluster analysis, and multiple criteria decisions making (MCDM) methods. Pareto optimal curves are used to evaluate the marginal prices of both …

تأثير استخدام أنواع مختلفة من الأسمدة على نمو ونوعية الخس (Lactuca Sativa L.), Basel Natsheh, Nawaf Abukhalaf

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

The experiment was conducted during the period from March to the end of April 2019 to observe the effect of different fertilizer regimes on the growth, quality and yield of lettuce under field conditions. The experiment was consisting of four treatments as well as a control without fertilizer T1, compost T2, compost tea T3 and chemical fertilizer T4, in each treatment 50 replicates were planted. The measurements included wet and dry weight for shoot and root, plant length, and chlorophyll percentage. The study revealed that lettuce's best growth values were obtained with the use of eco-friendly organic fertilizer accompanied by …

التنبؤ بأداء الطلاب بناء على ملف الطالب الأكاديمي, Hadi Khalilia, Thaer Sammar, Yazeed Sleet

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

Data mining is an important field; it has been widely used in different domains. Oneof the fields that make use of data mining is Educational Data Mining. In this study, we apply machine learning models on data obtained from Palestine Technical University-Kadoorie (PTUK) in Tulkarm for students in the department of computer engineering and applied computing. Students in both fields study the same major courses; C++ and Java. Therefore, we focused on these courses to predict student’s performance. The goal of our study is predicting students’ performance measured by (GPA) in the major. There are many techniques that are used …

توصيف المجتمعات البكتيرية في لحم الضأن الفلسطيني بواسطة التنميط الظاهري و تحليل جين 16s Rrna, Wafa Masoud, Mahmoud Hamdan

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

The main purpose of the present study was to isolate, identify and quantify bacteria in Palestinian fresh lamb meat. Phenotyping and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis was used to identify bacteria present in lamb meat samples. Thirty-four bacterial isolates were obtained from 20 samples of fresh lamb meat collected from 4 meat shops in Tulkarem city in Palestine. Bacterial counts were in a range of 3 x 103 -1.5 x 105 cfu / g with Staphylococcus aureus being the highest in numbers among other bacteria. Enterobacteriaceae and Staphylococ-caceae were the predominant bacterial families detected in fresh lamb meat samples. Two …

تخليق وتقييم إمكانات مضادات الليباز والالتحام الجزيئي لـلمركب الجديد N '- (2-Hydroxy-5-Nitrobenzylidene) Naphthalene-2-Sulfonohydrazide, Sameer Amereih, Abd Daraghmeh, Ismail Warad, Mohammed Al-Nuri

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

N’-(2-Hydroxy-5-nitrobenzylidene) naphthalene-2-sulfonohydrazide (SB) was prepared by condensation reaction, of naphthalene-2-sulfonylchloride with 2-Hydroxy-5-nitrobenzaldehyde. The Schiff base product (SB) was isolated, purified and then spectrally characterized via UV-Vis, FT-IR, 1H and 13C NMR analysis, where strong evidences confirmed the formation of the desired product. Pancreatic porcine lipase inhibition of the Schiff base product was evaluated and compared with the reference “Orlistat”. The product was an active as a lipase enzyme inhibitor with IC50 42.65±0.97 mcg/ml. The molecular docking of the compound with porcine pancreatic lipase was investigating, the results of theoretical docking explained the experimental one since several hydrogen bonds between the …

Reduced-Scale Experiments And Numerical Simulations Of Informal Settlement Dwelling Fires, Vigneshwaran Narayanan, Antonio Cicicone, Ayden D. Botha, Richard Shaun Walls

Progress in Scale Modeling, an International Journal

Informal settlement dwellings (ISDs) house approximately one billion people in the developing world and this number is expected to double by the year 2030. Contemporary research on ISD fires has focused on understanding the fire dynamics within individual dwellings (micro-scale) and fire spread in settlements consisting of multiple dwellings (macro-scale). This paper aims to do two primary things: investigate if scaling methods that were derived for compartments with thermally thick boundaries can be applied to ISDs (compartments with thermally thin boundaries), and if they can adequately represent the most important phenomena associated with full-scale ISD fires; and demonstrate Fire Dynamics …

Unstumm | Augmented Voyage: A Platform For Telematic Live Performances In Augmented Reality, Unstumm Unstumm, Nicola Hein, Claudia Schmitz, Sven Hahne Hahne

Journal of Network Music and Arts

UnStumm | Augmented Voyage is curated and developed by time-based media artist Claudia Schmitz and sound artist and guitarist Nicola L. Hein. It was programmed and developed by software engineer Sven Hahne. UnStumm | Augmented Voyage is also a mobile app and server infrastructure that serves as the artistic vehicle to realize telematic live performances with artists from around the globe. It consists of video art, music, and dance in augmented reality.
Through the use of our software, the audience is able to view the video streams by video artists as 3D video sculptures and listen to the audio streams …

“Dancedemic” In A Pandemic: A New Networked Reality, Ellen Pearlman

Journal of Network Music and Arts

The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 forced large parts of the globe and entire industries to shut down. Network connectivity became a necessary lifeline deploying a host of technologies that, while once considered experimental, were to be adopted as a vital part of just-in-time solutions-based practices. This report examines the implementation of one of these topologies in the form of an artist-built, artist-owned global network in the hopes that other small-sized organizations can benefit from these ad hoc, but successful solutions.

A Spectrum Of Online Rehearsal Applications: A Potential Means For Cultural Connection, Dana Kemack Goot, W. Scott Deal

Journal of Network Music and Arts

The current array of telematic music applications offers exceptional opportunities to transcend distance and enable networking between various cultures and communities. As a means to achieve this, network music applications require assessment through their previous implementations, installation requirements, cost, hardware requirements, and usability in order to assess their potential and to decipher improvements needed as a means of cultural connectivity. An early precursor of telematic music was an innovative concert by Paul Robeson in 1957, which circumvented political restrictions and enabled activism as it occurred, despite the U.S. State Department’s revocation of Robeson’s passport due to his left-wing tendencies and …

Telematic Immersion: Performance, Technology, And Audiovisual Work In Virtual Studies (2020) By Paulo C. Chagas, Cássia Carrascoza Bomfim

Journal of Network Music and Arts

This article discusses the concept of telematic immersion developed in partnership with composer Paulo C. Chagas. Focusing on Chagas’s work Virtual Studies (2020) for flute, live electronics, and 3D video, we reflect on different aspects of artistic creativity in the telematic environment including the use of audio and video technology and the multiple connections between musicians and apparatuses. The article discusses how the parameters of chamber music in the physical environment, such as the uniqueness of the live performance, the corporality of sound, and the visual and choreographic dimension of the performance are being transformed through the virtual setting of …

Sonic Proximities: Locating Oneself And The Others Within A “Migratory Journey”, Ximena Alarcon Diaz

Journal of Network Music and Arts

The INTIMAL App© is a mobile application that synchronously senses people’s walking rhythms in distant locations and then rhythmically sonifies these with the user’s chosen audio frequencies. Taken altogether, the perception of breathing and walking rhythms across space and time creates an embodied telepresence. At the level of content, the app has provided first-hand narrative accounts about the migration experiences of Colombian women living in Europe. These stories are meant to elicit a response from the listener, allowing for a path to be built out of new relationships that emerge between voices and sound frequencies. In the context of the …

Editorial, Sarah Weaver

Journal of Network Music and Arts

No abstract provided.

Look At All Those Big Knobs! Online Audio Technology Discourse And Sexy Gear Fetishes, Eliot Bates, Samantha Bennett

Publications and Research

Despite a predominantly digital, 21st century music production landscape, analogue hardware professional audio technologies persist. In the discoursal throes of the leading online audio technology message forum Gearslutz, such technologies are routinely objectified, sexualized, fetishized and socialized into gear. Situated in a contemporary critical, interdisciplinary framework of fetish, masculinity and sexuality studies, this research interrogates how audio technologies manufactured and intended for music production contexts become sexy. Applying a mixed-mode methodology, including an intensive discourse, image and material-semiotic analysis of an ‘epic’ sexy gear thread, we collated extensive data about technological fetishization. Sexy gear discourse articulates themes of voyeurism, acquisition, …

Measuring Accessibility For Pedestrians, Bicyclists, And Transit Riders To Grocery Stores In The Excelsior/Outer Mission Neighborhoods Of San Francisco, Alexandra Lee-Gardner

Master's Theses

Grocery stores are an important amenity in neighborhoods and access to grocery stores is important for health and well-being. While grocery store accessibility is a popular topic of research, studies measuring access for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders are extremely rare. When a new store opened in the Excelsior/Outer Mission districts of San Francisco on a street lacking basic infrastructure for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders, the importance of this study became apparent. The Excelsior/Outer Mission neighborhood has a shocking number of collisions (over 1,100 between 2015 and 2019), elevated levels of walking, biking, and transit ridership, and minimal safe …

Reconciliation, Restoration And Reconstruction Of A Conflict Ridden Country, Muhammad S. Riaz

Theses and Dissertations

Conflict has sadly been a constant part of history. Winning a conflict and making a lasting peace are often not the same thing. While a peace treaty ends a conflict and often dictates terms from the winners’ perspective, it may not create a lasting peace. Short of unconditional surrender, modern conflict ends with a negotiated cessation of hostilities. Such accords may have some initial reconstruction agreements, but Reconciliation, Restoration and Reconstruction (RRR) is a long term process. This study maintains that to achieve a lasting peace: 1) The culture and beliefs of the conflict nation must be continuously considered and …

Assessing Public Health Benefits Of Replacing Freight Trucks With Cargo Cycles In Last Leg Delivery Trips In Urban Centers, Jennifer C. Hartle, Ossama (Sam) A. Elrahman, Cara Wang, Daniel A. Rodriguez, Yue Ding, Matt Mcgahan

Mineta Transportation Institute

Increased urbanization, population growth, and demand for time-sensitive deliveries means increased freight movement in cities, which contributes to emissions, noise, and safety concerns. One innovative mode gaining widespread attention for urban deliveries is cargo cycles—bicycles adapted for freight delivery. Despite the recognized potential and possible success of transporting at least 25% of freight via cycle, research remains limited. This research investigates the potential of cargo cycle delivery for last mile freight in Oakland, California, with a focus on the West Oakland neighborhood. The data collection included interviews, focus groups, vehicle field observation and counts, and traffic simulation modeling. The traffic …

Happiness And Policy Implications: A Sociological View, Sarah M. Kahl

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The World Happiness Report is released every year, ranking each country by who is “happier” and explaining the variables and data they have used. This project attempts to build from that base and create a machine learning algorithm that can predict if a country will be in a “happy” or “could be happier” category. Findings show that taking a broader scope of variables can better help predict happiness. Policy implications are discussed in using both big data and considering social indicators to make better and lasting policies.

Aldi++: Automatic And Parameter-Less Discord And Outlier Detection For Building Energy Load Profiles, Matias Quintana, Till Stoeckmann, Young June Park, Marian Turowski, Veit Hagenmeyer, Clayton Miller

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Data-driven building energy prediction is an integral part of the process for measurement and verification, building benchmarking, and building-to-grid interaction. The ASHRAE Great Energy Predictor III (GEPIII) machine learning competition used an extensive meter data set to crowdsource the most accurate machine learning workflow for whole building energy prediction. A significant component of the winning solutions was the pre-processing phase to remove anomalous training data. Contemporary pre-processing methods focus on filtering statistical threshold values or deep learning methods requiring training data and multiple hyper-parameters. A recent method named ALDI (Automated Load profile Discord Identification) managed to identify these discords using …

Targeting Occupant Feedback Using Digital Twins: Adaptive Spatial-Temporal Thermal Preference Sampling To Optimize Personal Comfort Models, Mahmoud M. Abdelrahman, Clayton Miller

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Collecting intensive longitudinal thermal preference data from building occupants is emerging as an innovative means of characterizing the performance of buildings and the people who use them. These techniques have occupants giving subjective feedback using smartphones or smartwatches frequently over the course of days or weeks. The intention is that the data will be collected with high spatial and temporal diversity to best characterize a building and the occupant’s preferences. But in reality, leaving the occupant to respond in an ad-hoc or fixed interval way creates unneeded survey fatigue and redundant data. This paper outlines a scenario-based (virtual experiment) method …

Evaluation Of Polymer Binder Technisoil G5® In Concrete Mixture, Shadi Saadeh, Pritam Katawal

Mineta Transportation Institute

Plastic is everywhere, and with its increasing use in so many everyday materials, the production and demand of plastic has skyrocketed. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the accumulation of a mammoth amount of plastic waste and adverse effects on the environment. To optimize the huge amount of materials required by the pavement industry each year and reuse recycled plastics, the use of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) has been common practice. This research studied the use of a binder completely made from recycled waste plastic named Technisoil G5® and compared it with performance grade PG 70-22 mix containing virgin aggregates and …

Influence Of Level 1 And Level 2 Automated Vehicles On Fatal Crashes And Fatal Crash Occurrence, Hardik Gajera, Srinivas S. Pulugurtha, Sonu Mathew

Mineta Transportation Institute

Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) are expected to improve safety by gradually reducing human decisions while driving. However, there are still questions on their effectiveness as we transition from almost 0% CAVs to 100% CAVs with different levels of vehicle autonomy. This research focuses on synthesizing literature and identifying risk factors influencing fatal crashes involving level 1 and level 2 CAVs in the United States. Fatal crashes involving level 0 vehicles—ones that are not connected and automated—were compared to minimize unobserved heterogeneity and randomness associated with the influencing risk factors. The research team used the fatal crash data for the …

Impact Of Dedicated Bus Lanes On Intersection Operations And Travel Time Model Development, Stephen Arhin, Babin Manandhar, Kevin Obike, Melissa Anderson

Mineta Transportation Institute

Over the years, public transit agencies have been trying to improve their operations by continuously evaluating best practices to better serve patrons. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) oversees the transit bus operations in the Washington Metropolitan Area (District of Columbia, some parts of Maryland and Virginia). One practice attempted by WMATA to improve bus travel time and transit reliability has been the implementation of designated bus lanes (DBLs). The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) implemented a bus priority program on selected corridors in the District of Columbia leading to the installation of red-painted DBLs on corridors of H Street, …

Who Is Missing? Characterizing The Participation Of Different Demographic Groups In A Korean Nationwide Daily Conversation Corpus, Haewoon Kwak, Jisun An, Kunwoo Park

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A conversation corpus is essential to build interactive AI applications. However, the demographic information of the participants in such corpora is largely underexplored mainly due to the lack of individual data in many corpora. In this work, we analyze a Korean nationwide daily conversation corpus constructed by the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL) to characterize the participation of different demographic (age and sex) groups in the corpus.

Strainer: State Transcript Rating For Informed News Entity Retrieval, Thomas M. Gerrity

Master's Theses

Over the past two decades there has been a rapid decline in public oversight of state and local governments. From 2003 to 2014, the number of journalists assigned to cover the proceedings in state houses has declined by more than 30\%. During the same time period, non-profit projects such as Digital Democracy sought to collect and store legislative bill and hearing information on behalf of the public. More recently, AI4Reporters, an offshoot of Digital Democracy, seeks to actively summarize interesting legislative data.

This thesis presents STRAINER, a parallel project with AI4Reporters, as an active data retrieval and filtering system for …

Augmentative And Alternative Communication Use, Service Delivery Experiences, And Communicative Participation For People With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Betts Peters

Dissertations and Theses

People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) often experience changes to their speech, and may use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices and techniques to maintain the ability to communicate. The use of AAC may facilitate the participation of people with ALS in various life situations involving communication. There is limited data in the literature about the AAC approaches currently used by people with ALS, the professional services they receive to support communication, or the effects of AAC on their communicative participation. This dissertation involved a nationwide online survey of people with ALS, and comprises three papers intended to add to …